NCW Libraries

In Nov. 1942 a U.S. cargo plane crashed into the Greenland ice cap, the B-17 sent on the search-and-rescue mission got caught in a storm and also crashed, miraculously all nine men aboard survived. A second rescue operation was launched, but the plane, the Grumman Duck, flew into a storm and vanished. The survivors of the B-17 spent 148 days fighting to stay alive while waiting for rescue by famed explorer Bernt Balchen. Then in 2012 the U.S. Coast...

These are the stories that defy conventional logic. The proverbial vanished without a trace incidences, which happen a lot more (and a lot closer to your backyard) than almost anyone thinks. These are the missing whose situations are the hardest on loved ones left behind. The cases that are an embarrassment for park superintendents, rangers and law enforcement charged with Search & Rescue. The ones that baffle the volunteers who comb the mountains,...

Watch the telling of dramatic real-life stories from across the globe, using footage captured by the rescuers themselves; this series puts viewers in the center of the action for every heart-stopping twist and turn as they witness life-saving feats in real time.

In an era of smart-phones and GPS, how could a 270-ton passenger jet vanish into thin air? NOVA tells the inside story of the search for Flight MH370 and meets the key players from all corners of the globe who have spent months searching for the lost plane. How easy is it to make a plane disappear? Or can new technology guarantee that in the future, nothing will ever be 'lost' again?

Looks at how search and rescue teams prepare to search for lost people or help those whose lives are in danger.

Somewhere between hunting for gold in Latin America as a geologist and getting married to a new husband, thirty-three-year-old Susan Purvis loses her way. Susan comes to believe that a puppy and working on ski patrol at the last great ski town in Colorado will improve her life. When she learns about avalanches that bury people without warning, she challenges herself: "What if I teach a dog to save lives?" This quest propels her to train the best possible...

A civilian oil rig crew is recruited to conduct a search and rescue effort when a nuclear submarine mysteriously sinks. One diver soon finds himself on a spectacular odyssey 25,000 feet below the ocean's surface where he confronts a mysterious force that has the power to change the world or destroy it.

A Gold Star wife alone ... Ellie Meeks promised her pilot husband that if he was killed in combat, she would live her life to the fullest. Three years later, she is still alone, raising the twins he never met. She has no interest in dating or meeting men--until one snowy night when a stranger helps her get her sick kids safely home. That stranger turns out to be a former Army Ranger and a member of the elite Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. He's...

"The Search and Rescue mystery series returns readers to Timber Creek, where the hot, dry Santa Ana winds are blowing. But more than just the threat of wildfire endangers the tiny mountain community... Gracie and her Search and Rescue teammates are searching along the highway in the middle of the blisteringly hot Mojave Desert when they make a grisly discovery--a trash bag containing human body parts. Not long after, Gracie's growing friendship with...

As the attacks and violence between the US forces and the Taliban are at an all-time high at the end of the war in Afghanistan, National Geographic follows three Air Forces units of elite pararescuemen as they fly day and night, and in any conditions, to protect the 35,000-plus people who call Bagram Air Base home.